I present my 'Sleepy Quartet in A flat'

Going away tomorrow for annual visit to my sis - who's recently become a great-grandmother for the fourth time over. I always emphasise that this yearly travel is more a matter of fulfilling the familial obligation of staying in touch rather than it being a holiday. My last genuine hol was now 22 years ago.

Blackso and Noodles will, as usual, be delivered to kennels - which they'll loathe, Noodles will be bellowing his head off during the 20-minute taxi ride, while Blackso will put up with it in grumpy silence.

For my absence this time last year Ginger was fed outside by 'Mr Nasty' from the flat below me but, since the major confrontation between us a couple of months ago, I'm in no mood to ask him again. So I've asked the young ladies next door to do it. (Exactly what are the relationships there? Wink wink!). But despite their assistance, Ginger's got such a loud cry that my single greatest concern while away is that he's going to be sitting outside my kitchen window wailing loudly to be let in, and maybe making himself a nuisance to the near neighbourhood. But can't put him in the kennels because he hasn't been registered with a vet. I've still no idea where he came from - possibly was kicked out as a kitten - and he's the only one of my regular visitors who hasn't been neutered. (I can't afford to get him done, even if I knew that it was okay, or to get him on the books of a vet.) He seems to have taken it for granted that this is his home now, coming in several times a day to be fed, and spending much of his sleep time here too.

Patchy is the latest to have taken up 'assumed residence' here, also coming in every day for meals and sleeping here. However, in his case I not only know where his proper home is, but only last week I happened to pass the house when the owners  were coming out. I told them about Patchy settliing in with me but it seems that he does still occasionally visit his real home as well. He is just one of several 'rescued' cats they've taken in. Presumably it was too crowded for him! So I'm not too worried that he'll have somewhere other than my place to go to and be fed and to sleep.

So here are the players:-

My dear and faithful friend, Blackso, the most affectionate of them. Now must be at least 14 years old (in human years-equivalent that's got to be even older than I am.) though, unlike me, showing hardly any signs of ageing. Always been healthy, never been sick, he's been an absolute treasure for 1/5 of my entire life.

Noodles, the 'distant' one, will be about 11 or 12. He's the only one who will not sit in my lap, and he complains whenever he's picked up. My sole function seems to be to provide his food on demand, which is more often than for any of the others. But I still think he's a sweetie, putting his aloofness down to his original owners' likely failure to have shown him proper affection.

Ginger, the 'problem' pussy. He's by far the youngest of the four - not much more than a couple of years, I reckon, though also the one with the loudest cry. He does love to be stroked and cuddled, and is very probably not getting that treatment from anyone else. I'm afraid he's going to be making his presence known outside my kitchen window tomorrow and ensuing days.

....and Patchy, who's the biggest (and fattest!) - and who just barged his way in to take up residency a few months ago, as though he were boss. But, being a 'community cat' with several options of where to go, including his original home, at least he won't  be suffering in my absence, though more than likely he'll be annoyed at my thoughtless disappearing.


So even though I don't leave until tomorrow morning, mainly because of Ginger my mind won't rest until I'm back towards the end of the week And then I'm going to have some serious blog-reading catch-up to do.

Film: 'WORLD WAR Z' (in 3D)

I was really fearing that this was going to be a bit of a bummer. But it was not to be so.

Didn't start very well for me when discovered at the box office that, despite it being 'Bargain Tuesday', despite my claiming Senior Citizen discount, and despite my taking my own 3D specs, the ticket still came to more than twice the price I'd paid for yesterday's 3D 'Man of Steel'. So by the time I'd got myself ensconced I was seething inwardly (I don't have money to burn!) and only hadn't turned back to come home because I'd travelled 12 miles to get there.

Unfortunately my inner resentment took my mind off the first part of the film - though the opening scene was quite 'sit-up-and-watch-this' stuff. Then my mind wandered as to whether, when I got back home, today's dinner should be a Waitrose Potato and Leek flan (with pre-prepared salad and tinned new pots) or should I have Quorn sausages? (The latter eventually won out).
When I did start taking notice of what was going on in front of me, on the cinema's biggest of its eight screens, I started longing for Romero's 1979 'Dawn of the Dead' - or even 'Shaun of the Dead'. But when the scene shifted to Jerusalem I got back to my senses. It became rather good. The aerial shots, especially, were very impressive, with the 'undead' moving at the speed of an athlete at full sprint, and clambering on top of each other like ants overdosed on Red Bull. This was followed by a relatively short scene in a plane, which was another darned good one. Then onto science labs in Wales, of all places (sorry, J.G., no slur intended!) - and good and tense it continued to be, right to the film's end. Pity about the comforting, though brief, homily-epilogue from Mr Pitt which, I assume, was intended as a sort of "Don't have nightmares!" message for the parting audience.

So, surprisingly, not at all bad. I do wish I'd paid more attention to the earlier part of the film, but even so, unlike John Gray of 'Going Gently' in his recent review ( http://disasterfilm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/world-war-z.html ) I didn't need anything, Scotch egg or fried egg sarnie, to cheer me up afterwards.

'World War Z' is hardly a 'great' film but it certainly provided entertainment for me - and I think that if my mind hadn't been elsewhere earlier on then I may have given it a slightly higher rating. As it is, the minimum I can award it is a better than so-so.......................6/10 

Film: 'MAN OF STEEL' (in 3D)

Where's all the fun gone?

Austere, over-earnest, ear-splitting (what's new?), sprawling take on story of Superman's genesis - shot, in large part, in harsh, metallic tints. A damn serious business this is!

Henry Cavill just about acceptable as the po-faced hero, with Russell Crowe his extra-terrestrial Dad, annoyingly popping up with alarming frequency, post-death like Lazarus, complete with cut-glass Professor Higgins articulation and 'propah' English accent..

Very little light and shade in this version. I badly missed comic touches of Clark Kent gaucheries in his 'mortal' Daily Planet reporter persona, as well as the pantomime villainy of a Lex Luthor - though there is the strong hint of at least the former of these in a sequel. If a further film does transpire, boy, are they stringing this out! Anyway, to let the cloak and tights-clad Steel-man have even a hint of a humorous side in any future projects he'd have to be a very different creature from the strait-laced character he is here.

Having said all that, I did find that this film occasionally prodded my mind into a state of wakefulness - or perhaps that was merely the effect on my bombarded tympani. 

Maybe it would be an advantage to have little or no knowledge of the original Superman of comic fame. I still remember avidly reading the comics in the 1950s, getting a weekly dose of exciting tingles at his 'save-the-world' feats. I also recall, in that same medium, his be-spectacled, superficially naive, alter ego - and his flirty (not too much - we were just boys!) exchanges with Lois Lane.
I did like the 1978 Christopher Reeve film, which captured his dual nature remarkably well - something which is all but absent here, sacrificed at the expense of huge-scale special effects and noise. So boring!

I'm not aware of any reviews which are spitting out superlatives, but as at this moment I see on the IMDb site that the average score given by viewers is a hefty '8'. Good for anyone who enjoys it more than I did. I wouldn't wish to decry anyone who derives a lot of pleasure from it. Not for the first (or last time) am I 'out of the loop', though it was hardly aimed for the likes of me.
Even though it's only a few hours since I saw it, the experience has already faded far more than my memory of the film of 35 years ago.

I offer 'Man of Steel' a just less than money's worth..........................4/10 

Film: 'MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING'

A delightful film. Made in a week, in b/w, on a very modest budget, with modern dress-cast (completely unknown to me) and at director Joss Whedon's own home - and it turns out to be not far short of a triumph. So, you never can tell!

After the justifiable paring down of Shakespeare's play, the text still remains substantively the Bard's, with only minor tweaks (including a change of sex for one of the lesser roles). And it's practically all as near faultlessly delivered as one could reasonably hope for.

I can hardly believe that it's 20 years since Kenneth Branagh's starry-casted film in sumptuous, Italian period setting. (Emma Thompson magnificent) - another version with many admirable qualities.

This play is, along with Hamlet, the one of W.S.'s I've seen more times performed on stage than any other, the last time being over two decades ago with Felicity Kendal and the late Alan Bates as Beatrice and Benedict, both even by then being rather too old for their parts.

In this new film we have Amy Acker (really good) and Alexis Denisof - who's a bit of a hottie in a 'Greg Kinnear' sort of way - even sporting a beard in the early part of the film. More than one critic thought his acting was a bit stiff, but if it was it wasn't markedly so.

The play takes a violent lurch of mood half-way through. In the early part, in which the dastardly scheme of Don John to concoct a slander is devised, the prevailing atmosphere is one of comedy - and is one of Shakespeare's most adroitly handled. Then comes the wedding ceremony, at which the prospective bride is publicly denounced by the would-be groom and from then on the mood is bleak, save for the unfunny episodes of Dogberry and his henchman which, try as these actors might, comes nothing close to approaching the deft humour of the lead players earlier on. (Shakespeare's 'clowns' are rarely very comical anyway -  one obvious exception being the rustics in 'Dream'.) But the the high acting level is maintained throughout the serious second half, when the mood is finally broken by the culminating scene of revelations, gasps, unlikely forgivenesses and general merry-making. But anyone who faults Shakespeare on the silliness of his many of his plays' resolutions just do not 'get' him. Of course, it's the language that matters above all, and it never fails to take my breath away, no matter how many times I hear it. So it was here.

A particular original idea, and something which could only be achieved on film, is just a brief, very few seconds glimpse of why Beatrice and Benedict turned out to be squabbling in the first place. At first I gulped at the surprise - but thinking about it, the idea actually works and is logical. Nice touch! 

One of my few gripes (yet again) is the background music, though, thankfully, it's not all-pervasive in this film. If the words of Shakespeare himself cannot be trusted to signify the mood to be adopted, then whose words can?

Overall, then, very satisfying indeed - allowing me to endorse this version of 'Much Ado' with a warm................7.5

  

Film: 'BEHIND THE CANDELABRA'

It's true that throughout this film I couldn't get out of my head that I was watching its two main stars performing their characters rather than seeing Liberace and Thorson on screen. But even so, I found it a highly entertaining experience, both Douglas and Damon giving their all  More's the pity, then, that they'll be denied their chances of Oscar nominations because of the film's not qualifying for such, due to its absence of an initial American theatrical release. However, I'd find it gratifying if Douglas, at least, manages to achieve a BAFTA nomination. He'd deserve it as I don't think he's been better - and probably the same goes for Damon too, notwithstanding the fact that at the start of the film he is playing a young man still in his teenage years.

The film ought to work even better for those who didn't know of Liberace, as Douglas' portrayal then wouldn't be encumbered by memories of witnessing the real man's act on screen.  But I think some of those of younger generations might only see the off-putting duplicity of this unique individual, whose closeted-life paranoia was hardly a shining advertisement for progressive gay politics.
L's reputation as a global superstar seems now to have been all but been expunged from memory, not only surely because of the manner of his demise during an infamous series of denials as to the true nature of his illness (I still clearly recall the publicity announcements of his loss of weight being due to a 'water-melon diet' -  this being still at a time when ignorance and scare-stories about AIDS were rife and precious fodder for the tabloids) but also because there is hardly anything of permanence that he has left behind, other than a few films of TV appearances. There is certainly nothing of lasting significance in the recording field.
In the U.K. he had just the one Top 20 'hit' - 'Unchained Melody' which reached the dizzy heights of number 20 itself for all of one single week in 1955!
In Mark Kermode's positive review of this film for the BBC he tells of a younger member of staff pronouncing the name 'Liberace' to rhyme with 'face'. So far have 'the mighty' fallen!

This film, beginning in 1977 at the start of his relationship with Thorson, takes the story up long after Liberace's popularity had peaked , which had probably been in the late 1950s. But even at a date as late as the start of the film he did still have a loyal fan-base (particularly of blue-rinse ladies) - and he did still possess big-name allure that few could compete with, right up there even with Sinatra himself.

The story is an interesting one. I haven't read the Thorson book on which the film is based but it's still fascinating. One knows there will be a 'car crash' in the relationship between the men but I didn't know at what point it would come and what particular event would trigger it, apart from guessing that it would be one of jealousy, justified or not.

Rob Lowe, as the unintentionally funny plastic surgeon, is remarkable. Good also to see Debbie Reynolds on screen again, if only twice briefly. (I didn't even think she was still with us!)

Although we get good sight of some of the man's outlandishly garish costumes it was a pity that we didn't see a like impression of the adulation in performance he got almost universally, all his performances here taking place in the one theatre, and all with a curiously muted audience, and a barely visible one at that. But, as indicated, the action takes place long after his own 'bubble' had burst so it may have been factually accurate. However, apart from a retinue of house staff and bodyguards, it still provided no illustration of his continued status as a 'living legend'.

One particular curiosity I noted. How was it that in the late 1970s and into the 80s he could not afford a colour TV? Even I could!


I feared I might have been disappointed by this film. I wasn't - and I mark it with a commendable......................7.5

Film: 'THE BIG WEDDDING'

The justification for this hopelessly flat 'romantic-comedy' was, presumably, that if you take a quartet of big-name stars (from the 'mature' range), give them some bland sentences to utter, including a few, oh-so-daring oral sex references, then, hey presto, we'd all be laughing our socks off. If only.

Robert de Niro (yet again determined to show that he can 'do' comedy - yawn!) and Susan Sarandon are a living-together couple following his divorce from Diane Keaton, the formerly married pair having an adult son and daughter as well as an adopted son, the latter being about to get married. The prospective groom's non-English-speaking natural mother is coming to the wedding but, being a devout, traditional Catholic who doesn't accept divorce, there is the problem of her being disapproving towards her son's foster parents. Solution? De Niro and Keaton will pretend that they are still married for the duration of the mother's stay. Sarandon doesn't like the idea and leaves the home in a huff - but to everyone's dismay, unexpectedly pops up as official wedding caterer. I'd have thought that this situation, though totally unoriginal, might have provided some entertaining fireworks as there is comic potential in having her embarrass the 'pretend-married' couple in various novel ways - but that idea doesn't  get off the ground. I can only think that the director had to find some way of keeping Sarandon in the film after her walk-out.
      Robin Williams appears in three brief scenes as the officiating priest - with nothing of note to add.
Mother duly arrives, with her predatory adult daughter who sets her eyes on groom's single brother (note: not gay), played by one, Topher Grace (a name I didn't know, but pretty damn hot!). And there's also the  presence of De Niro's and Keaton's daughter in sour mood. having just broken off a relationship with her partner. Will they manage to get together again before the film ends? What suspense! Ha ha! Oh, what a hoot this all is!  
     Film culminates in one of those alfresco wedding-dos that seems to be a feature of so many American films since 'The Godfather' - and where revelations tumble out, jaws drop, reconciliations offered, refused, then accepted - and everyone finally, happily and willingly drowns in a treacle of gooey sentiment.
   One of the things that really bugged me about this film was the frequent presence of music which nudges one when to laugh or, at least, when to wear a favourably-disposed smile. It's one of my pet hates. If a situation or a line in a film is funny then I'll laugh without any assistance, thank you. I do not need to have it underlined, as though giving me permission to do something which I may not wish to do!

It's one of those films which I wished I hadn't bothered with and saved my money. But, having succumbed to be drawn to it by the big names appearing, I'm obliged to give it a score. So, with one point each for the mere presences of Sarandon, Keaton - as well as for the newly discovered hottie, Topher Grace - it achieves a grand total of.......................3/10!

Liberace's 'Desert Island Disc' choices

Oh blow! Enough of this shilly-shallying! Further to my blog of yesterday, let's now get this over and done with before I bore myself to death in a fog of torpitude.


Liberace's disc choices in this 1960 radio programme were:-

1) Rachmaninov - 18th variation from 'Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini' - the composer as soloist.

2) Tchaikowsky - Violin Concerto (soloist's 1st movement entry) - Jascha Heifetz as soloist.

3) Rimsky Korsakov - Scheherezade - opening of 4th movement, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting.

4) Glen Miller - 'Hallelujah'

5) Mantovani - 'September Song'  [one of two selections, along with Nr 8, of compositions by Kurt Weill].

6) R.Strauss - 'Death and Transfiguration', conducted by Bruno Walter

7) Puccini - La Boheme, Mimi's death scene - Renate Tebaldi

8) Frank Sinatra - 'Lost in the Stars' (title song from Weill/Anderson musical)  [a show of which I've never heard].


If he was forced to make do with only one of the above it would be the Rachmaninov.


His chosen luxury was, predictably, a piano - and his book of choice was 'The Magic of Believing' by Claude M. Bristol.


He felt his biggest consolation in leaving the world behind and to have to live alone on an isolated desert island, would be that he'd have no need to dress. "I hate dressing!" he said. (Who would have thought it!)

His biggest phobia was of bugs - flies, spiders, mosquitos etc.

His unfulfilled ambition at this time was to appear in a 'show' and in films as an actor. (Hardly a surprise that that was never realised!)

He liked to 'create things ' - and he loved fishing and gardening.


And that's it!

Liberace on 'Desert Island Discs'.

In the wake of the film 'Behind the Candelabra' which opens in cinemas here on Friday, and which I plan to see next Tuesday, I don't know why I hadn't thought of this until now.

The BBC has got available on one of its websites over 1,500 past editions of its radio programme 'Desert Island Discs' - and I've just searched out the one in which the subject was Liberace, which was broadcast on 23rd May 1960, when he'd have been approaching the age of 49, and four years after he'd won the then considerable sum of £26,000 in damages against the British reporter William Connor (under his nom-de-plume 'Cassandra'), for daring to suggest in a national newspaper (in a 'read-between-the lines' kind of way), that he, Liberace, was a homosexual.
     Given the date of broadcast of this 30 minute programme, the subject is treated quite formally and deferentially by today's standards - and nothing is said of the court case or his relationships. (Roy Plomley, the programme's innovator and regular presenter until he died in the late1980s, addresses him as "Mister Liberace.")

    There were several postings made last year by myself and by a few other bloggers expounding on the idea behind the 'Desert Island Discs' radio programme, which has been running since 1940s, in which a celebrity (of any renown at all - actors, show business, sport, science, writing etc -  including a large number of Americans), is asked to nominate which eight gramophone records s/he would take with him/her to a desert island on the assumption that these would be the only music (or speech) which would be heard for the remainder of that person's life. (Choices are to be of single tracks i.e. no more than three or four minutes long - the original idea being that each would occupy no more than the space of an old-style 78 r.p.m. record on a wind-up gramophone - so no complete musicals, operas, oratorios, large works etc)
In addition the subject is allowed to take one luxury (of no practical use in enabling survival) plus one book apart from the Bible (or some other 'spiritual' text appropriate to the castaway's beliefs, if any) and a complete Shakespeare, which are already on the island awaiting the subject's arrival. (If you don't want them you just don't read them!)


I fear that the programme may not be available to those outside the U.K. but here's the site just in case:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p009y780

Anyone within these shores wanting to listen should have no problem in connecting.


If you are interested but can't connect to the site I'll do another blog revealing Liberace's choice of eight discs as well as some things he said in the interview, which actually wasn't very deep. He didn't give much away.


Btw: Now that the 'Candelabra's' trailer is being shown in cinemas I can already see that Michael Douglas, however praiseworthy his performance, doesn't quite seem to capture the sheer 'smarminess' which exuded from the guy. I ought to add that, personally, the presence of Liberace on the TV screen never repulsed me as he might possibly have done to others. There was always an intrinsic fascination about him in everything he did or in anticipation of what he'd say. There's no denying, he was a class act - impossible to follow. 

Film: 'BENJAMIN BRITTEN - PEACE AND CONFLICT'

Documentary (narrated by John Hurt) on the internationally renowned English classical composer, 1913-1976, recounting episodes of his school life (reasonably well re-constructed) - and other aspects, with an emphasis on his loathing of cruelty (to man and beast), his being influenced by W.H.Auden during his 2-year stay in America, his being a conscientious objector in WWII and his espousing of pacifist causes and leftish politics throughout his life. His life-long relationship with tenor Peter Pears is openly referred to, though questions arising in recent years as to whether he may or may not have had paedophilic inclinations are not addressed. (There has never been any suggestion that he ever, even once, indulged in such).
     I didn't learn much new about him, though I hadn't known he'd been such a prolific composer while still a child. He reached his 'Opus 100' still in his teenage years, including piano sonatas, chamber music and a large-scale symphony - though he didn't attempt to get any of them published.
     There was passing reference to his well-documented habit of permanently freezing out of his life anyone who let him down musically or disappointed him professionally, not even acknowledging their presence  although the day before they'd been the best of friends. Something else I'd heard, which actually wasn't mentioned in this film, was that his attraction to the treble voices of boys, for which he wrote many compositions, was likewise only for as long as that particular boy could sing within that high range. The moment his voice broke, Britten would again cruelly ignore the boy from then on. Some have seen a liking for boys' voices which extended beyond admiration to an infatuation with them. Maybe - I just don't know. (I'd also heard that both he and Pears were singularly lacking a sense of humour - particularly when a joke was aimed at them.)

   I've always had a problem to some extent with Britten's music. For a long time after I first became aware of him I often had the feeling that he'd so obviously try to avoid composing a hummable tune, veering off, as though in a conversation he was changing from an embarrassing subject. There was a 'contrivance' there which I didn't find with many other 20th century composers. In other words, there seemed to be a lack of spontaneity. Even now I occasionally get the same feeling - though it varies from piece to piece.
    It took me many years to appreciate his operas. I've heard them all now, and though I really needed at least two listenings for the magic to work, some of them are truly extraordinary. I suppose I know 'Albert Herring' the best, having seen it on stage at least three times, and it's great fun - and quite melodious too. It also boasts possibly his best libretto.
  And his largest-scale work, the 'War Requiem' is just phenomenal, something about which I could write a complete post.

A pretty good film, quite informative to some degree, perhaps more useful for those who know little about the man. Despite the inevitable gaps in his life story I did spend a fairly satisfying morning's viewing.